John Yates, Assistant Commissioner of the Met police, has admitted letting
down the victims of the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

John Yates, if not quite squirming in his armchair, appears distinctly uncomfortable.

Seated in an office high up in Scotland Yard, with views over London, Assistant Commissioner Yates is finally making his apologies.

Two years ago, in July 2009, 'Yates of the Yard’ had the chance to reopen the Metropolitan police’s investigation into "industrial scale" phone hacking at the News of the World. He missed it.

Instead of re-examining 11,000 pages of material recovered from the home of the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, jailed in 2007 for hacking into the mobile phones of Royal aides, Yates decided after eight hours’ consideration, which included consulting the Crown Prosecution Service and investigating officers, that there was no likelihood of further convictions.

In a remarkably candid interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Yates, 52, who became the lightening rod for public anger at the police’s failure to properly investigate News of the World’s phone hacking, conceded he let down the thousands of hacking victims - among them the dead schoolgirl Milly Dowler and her family.

He also accepted the Metropolitan Police’s reputation has been seriously damaged by the scandal but said he had no intention of resigning. Over the course of an hour and half he talked through the mistakes that had been made, describing them as cock-up, not conspiracy. The thousands of pages of evidence had been kept in bin bags for three years before he finally took the decision to have the names entered on to a computer database, allowing police to properly examine the leads.

He revealed that he too had been the victim of phone hacking but was quick to dismiss as 'contemptible’ claims - currently doing the rounds of police and media circles - that he had had any sort of relationship with Rebekah Brooks.

The 2006 investigation

It began in 2006 with the arrest of Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working for the News of the World, and Clive Goodman, its royal editor. The initial police inquiry was led by Andy Hayman, the officer responsible for both anti-terrorism and Royal protection. The inquiry focused on hacking into the phones of Royal aides - Prince William had become concerned over a report in the News of the World that could only have been obtained though hacking phone messages - and a handful of others including Gordon Taylor, the football players’ representative, who would later receive a secret £800,000 payment from News International that effectively bought his silence. Police seized 11,000 pages of notes from Mulcaire, containing the names of 4,000 potential hacking victims.

So why was the investigation so narrowly focused?

Yates said: “The first inquiry started off as a national security issue regarding the two princes.

“The whole job revolved around what is a victim? And the interpretation of the law of what a victim was. We took a narrow view of what a victim was, because that is what we felt the [legal] advice was. There is now dancing on the head of a pin on that.

“We had always said there were a small number of victims. I was told there were hundreds of names in his [Mulcaire’s] system but he was a private investigator and you would expect him to have a range of people and material [in his books].”

Asked why the investigation did not get a higher priority at the time, Yates points to the context. Two days after Mulcaire’s arrest, the same police unit foiled an al-Qaeda plot to blow up transatlantic airliners.

At that time, police had failed to appreciate the full significance of Mulcaire’s treasure trove of documents. “I’ve never seen the 11,000 pages; I knew there were bin bags full of material but legal counsel reviewed all of it. They will say they reviewed the material solely according to the narrow framework of the indictment but the fact of the matter is they saw all the source material.

“I have regrettably said the initial inquiry was a success. Clearly now it looks very different.”

Yates of the Yard is called in

Yates was at his desk in Scotland Yard in July 2009 when he received a call from the Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, asking him to look afresh at phone hacking in the light of that morning’s Guardian newspaper article detailing fresh allegations of industrial-scale hacking by Mulcaire.

Yates was the Met’s star man, trusted with the most difficult cases, investigating cash for honours and being trusted with apologising to the family of Jean Charles de Menezes.

“Not in a million years did I ever think we would get to this point when I came to it in July 2009. It was relatively straight forward. The Guardian had raised a lot of issues. It was a bloody great story but the question was: was there anything new in it for us? The answer was no there wasn’t. But should I have come out so quickly and said there wasn’t anything in it? Tactically, I probably shouldn’t have. I should have cogitated and reflected but it’s so bloody obvious there was nothing there [that we didn’t already know]. I didn’t do a review. Had I known then what I know now – all bets are off. In hindsight there is a shed load of stuff in there I wish I’d known.”

The case is closed again in 2009

The first thing Yates did was write a memorandum outlining the parameters of his fresh look at the case. It is proof, he suggests, that there has been no cover-up and that none of his decisions were influenced in any way by News International. “Were we lethargic, complacent or corrupt? I don’t think we were any of those, certainly not corrupt.”

But he admits the parameters he was set in 2009 were narrow. “I held a series of meetings with the senior investigating officer. We looked at what the Crown Prosecution Service had said. It was landmark case and we still don’t have case law on it.

“To have given the go ahead for a full review of a case of that nature would have involved four or five people and five or six months work and a lot of resources and in July 2009 why would I do that?” With assurances from the CPS and investigating officers, Yates concluded rapidly there was nothing to be gained from opening the case up again.

“In terms of proper use of our resources I am not going to re-investigate, for the same offence.”

But as queries poured in from celebrities and politicians asking if they had been victims of hacking, Yates realised the evidence in the bin bags needed to be entered on to a computer database. He employed a team of ten to input the information but still failed to re-open the investigation. “I’m not going to go down and look at bin bags. I am supposed to be an Assistant Commissioner. Perhaps I should have been more demanding. I am accountable, and it happened on my watch, and it’s clear I could have done more,” he said.

“If I had known then what I know now of course we’d have widened it. I could have handed it over to the specialist crime directorate.” The decision, he admitted, “was a pretty crap one”.

News International blocks the inquiry

With News International sticking to its claim that the hacking was conducted by only one 'rogue reporter’, Yates says police found it difficult to bring further prosecutions. “When we made the arrests in 2005 on the day we went to Wapping there was a Mexican stand-off, a lock down, and they wouldn’t let us in. Most newspapers desks would do the same if a cop turned up with a dodgy looking warrant.

“In fairness in 2005/2006 and even in 2009 did we think hacking was standard practice? I don’t think anybody knew. Now it’s different. There were levels of assurances [that it was restricted to one 'rogue reporter’] from the News of the World, who were not the most cooperative. News International cooperated just enough. They were pretty clever about that. They were just taking it to the limit.

“If I knew then what I know now, it would have been professionally crazy not to [reopen the investigation]. The only reason you now have a new investigation is because News of the World produced new material and new evidence that only happened in January this year.

“That material was completely available to them in 2005/ 06. It makes their assurances in 2005 and 2006 very shaky.” Asked if that was criminal, Yates replied: “That is a matter for the new team. In my view it was extremely unhelpful to receive it five or six years later.”

Rebekah Brooks and police relations with the Murdoch empire

Yates was remarkably frank on the subject of Rebekah Brooks, and extraordinary rumours circulating that he had had a relationship with her.

“There has been a huge amount of malicious gossip. I have laughed at it. It is quite astonishing. I take it with a large pinch of salt, it’s not true. I have been around this business a number of years and have good relationships with the media which I think is part of my role to help inform the context and some of them are in the News of the World.” Yates said he had known Neil Wallis, Andy Coulson’s deputy editor at the News of the World, and previously editor of The People, for 12 years.

Other suggestions of improper relationships, made under the veil of Parliamentary privilege, have deeply upset him. They are, he said: “Contemptible, utterly untrue, and cowardly ... I will take whatever action I can to defend myself on that. It can be shown on any number of levels to be utterly false. Apart from that, I haven’t got any strong views about it.”

Asked if he thought Brooks should quit, he said: “It is a matter for her. I think it is a matter for Rebekah, her company and her conscience. It has nothing to do with us.” Asked about the fact the paper had closed but the chief executive remained in post, he added: “I’ve lost the ability to be surprised but that was a surprising development.”

Claims of police corruption

Yates, who said he too was hacked in 2005 and 2006, insisted any officers found to have taken bribes from News of the World journalists in return for information would be pursued through the courts. He said if it was true it would be “utterly disgraceful , completely corrupt”.

“It’s not proven but this has to be investigated. This has happened in the past. It is extremely rare but it does happen.

“If it has happened, those who have done it or received it will have to stand up and be counted. The alleged sums are large and it is a huge surprise even to me, that it is that still going on. The revolving doors of drugs, money in brown paper envelopes, I thought that had gone out the window. If it’s proven these officers will undoubtedly go to jail. If police officers have accepted money for information they will go to prison.”

The police’s reputation

Yates admits the scandal has harmed the Metropolitan Police’s reputation and that it will take time to rebuild.

“It think the police have been damaged by this. Without feeling at all sorry for myself, I think this has been a very damaging episode for us and we have got to work hard to rebuild the trust in the Met and what we do; we’re a fabulous organisation and do a lot of things fabulously well and it’s deeply regrettable we find ourselves in this position.

“But we are where we are and we have to hold our hands up personally and collectively and this was not done well by any stretch of the imagination we have got to go on and do it better and get through it.”

Milly Dowler and the other victims

As the leading officer who dealt with victims of the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 and was tasked with apologising on behalf of Scotland Yard for the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was mistakenly shot by officers, Yates admits he let down the victims of phone hacking.

“The Milly stuff is just shocking beyond anything. It’s a tipping point and quite rightly so. We are all extremely shocked by it and it’s a matter of massive regret it we didn’t deal with it earlier.

“It is beyond comprehension - beyond belief that someone thought that was acceptable.

“I do want to get across a tone of humility. It’s a huge regret these matters weren’t uncovered earlier. Things were all done with the best of intentions and the suggestion we’ve been corrupt is appalling but a real concern. My byword has always been you look after the victims and the job will always resolve itself.

“I always put the victim first but here I didn’t follow my principle and that is my greatest regret.”